2011 Mourvedre

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The 2011 Tablas Creek Vineyard Mourvèdre is Tablas Creek’s eighth varietal bottling of Mourvèdre, and showcases the combination of intensity and freshness of the 2011 vintage. We use most of our Mourvèdre in our Esprit de Beaucastel each year. However, we feel that the Mourvèdre grape, often pigeonholed as a blending varietal, can produce remarkable single-varietal wines. When we have particularly characteristic lots of Mourvèdre, we try to reserve a limited quantity for a single-varietal bottling.

Tasting Notes

The 2011 Mourvèdre shows a nose of herb-rubbed roast, figs, balsamic and mint. The mouth is cool and minty, very fresh, with nice dark red currant fruit, fresh herbs, mineral and a hint of sweeter fruit coming out toward the end, all surrounded by chewy tannins. Drink it now and for the next decade.

Production Notes

The 2011 vintage was our second consecutive winter with healthy rainfall, but yields were dramatically reduced by two nights of frost on April 8th and 9th, impacting early-sprouting grapes like Grenache and Syrah but largely sparing the late-sprouting Mourvedre. Despite the low crop loads, ripening was slow due to a very cool summer, and harvest roughly three weeks later than normal, beginning in mid-October and not concluding until early-November. Warm, sunny weather during harvest allowed Mourvèdre to reach full maturity. The long hangtime and low yields combined to produce fruit with notable richness balanced by higher than usual acidity, all at low alcohol levels.

The Mourvèdre grapes were destemmed and then fermented using native yeasts in a balance of small open-top and enclosed stainless steel tanks. After three weeks, they were pressed and moved to 1200-gallon foudres to complete their fermentation. The Mourvèdre lots were blended in May of 2012, aged for an additional year in a 1200-gallon foudre and bottled in April 2013.